Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Families apparently aren't rebelling against the money-saving school closure/consolidation plan the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board approved late last year. If they were of a mind to opt out of the new K-8 campuses or the revamped Harding high school, it might easily show up as a surge in magnet school lottery requests.

But at their weekly press briefing, Superintendent Peter Gorman and his aides said they don't see any sign of higher-than-normal magnet school applications from children bound for the revamped schools. They said, for instance, that they saw no evidence fifth-graders zoned for K-8 campuses are applying in higher-than-normal numbers for middle-school magnet programs. Harding, a previously all-magnet school that will accept Waddell's students next fall, also showed strong enrollment numbers. Harding's International Baccalaureate magnet drew 714 students, nearly as many as it had last year.

Of course, pessimists could argue that many parents might not have seen magnets as a practical option, now that CMS requires them in many instances to ferry their kids to less-than-convenient shuttle stops to catch magnet buses. CMS officials prefer the non-pessimist view. "The response of the community has been positive to the changes we've made," said Mike Raible, facility planning guru for CMS.

For more details on the issue, see Ann's story from last week, which also includes a link to a CMS page with all lottery results for all the magnet schools.

5
comments:

Anonymous
said...

Wait until Harding absorbs their new crowd from West Meck and see what a positive influence they'll be on the IB program. Did anyone see a positive response from the Waddell folks? I'm sure the Harding parents lobbied hard to acquire these students. These factors alone should make Allegheny St. a happening place and Mr. Raible's statements as bogus as the April week of tests to nowhere with subsequent loss of instructional time.

There seems to be no end insight to the lengths this Superintendent and his staff will go to mislead the community of Charlotte and the State of North Carolina. CMS is still under a lawsuit investigation by these parents . Does this sound like a community that has accepted Gorman’s inhumane tactics? Even the Superintendent for Wake county is using his 28 million “Race to the Top” money to maintain teachers and create bonuses . What does our Superintendent do… uses the money to fund his Pay for Performance project, and hire bogus companies to replace quality teachers with non-certified individuals . The employees are very much fed up with the inappropriate mismanagement of our system. He knows he does not have any support from his teachers. because they see how he is hindering the education of our students.

We have the Observer's opinion of the two of you, how about the addition of a Conservative White Guy?

I will be happy to be the person who advocates vouchers and work for free. In fact we are meeting on Monday, March 21st at Panera Bread on North Tryon Street across from the Hospital at 3PM to talk about Vouchers and the system.

We invite everyone who wants to run for office and see some changes in our schools.

The Observer covers these CMS comments in a blog. There's a big difference in a blog and a column on the front page.

Is CMS' news conference release the result of last summer Board Chair Eric Davis working his tail off to get parents to understand the depths of what was facing CMS? If so, he would have been involved in the Wednesday story.

The comments would have been a game changer had they come from the parents that filed the Civil Rights Division complaint.

Why would Pete leave? He has a school board that supports every destructive move he makes. Davis just can not thank him enough for firing top teachers, for using large sums of money to fund failed policies, and for leaving our schools more vulnerable to violent crimes. When Pete goes, the entire board needs to be swept up and thrown out with him!